Eric Arnow has his own web site now. For years I've been putting his
letters from Asia here. From now on they'll go on his site, the
Bumble Buddhist which
also now has all the previous ones from cuke and photos more. - dc

12-31-06 -
I am OK, but still concerned

Hi:

Last night I
went for a small dinner party with 4 Swiss and another American. A very
pleasant evening, but we stayed quite late--2:30 AM, and couldn't find a
taxi home.

We went onto
the street and fortunately got a motorcycle cab typical here, to take 4 of
us home. The streets were almost empty. One of my friends, Ingalore,
told me she had had an unsettling dream the night before about an
earthquake, similar to a dream she had just before 911, in which she had
dreamt about airplanes flying around NY City.

Neither of
us thought too much about it but when I got up, she called me to say that
some bombs had gone off in Bangkok.

I am fine, I
had no idea anything had happened, but I am certainly concerned.

Here is a
Bangkok Post article about it.

Update:
'Stay at home today'

Bangkok
(dpa) - A spate of New Year's Eve bombings in Bangkok,
including two set off shortly after midnight,
killed at least three people and injured 36 others including six
foreigners, Bangkok Governor Apirak Kosayodhin and hospital sources said
Monday.

Altogether
seven bombs were detonated in Bangkok and one in nearby Nonthaburi
province on Sunday and early Monday, Apirak said.

In the first
spate of attacks, six bombs and grenades were set off Sunday evening
shortly after 6 p.m.,
killing two Thais and injuring about 25 people. A third victim died in
hospital on Monday.

Two more
bombs were detonated shortly after midnight near the Central World Plaza
department store in Bangkok, where a New Year's countdown had been planned
but cancelled.

Bangkok
authorities issued warnings to revellers to cancel their New Year's Eve
celebrations shortly after the first spate of attacks. Public countdowns
for the New Year were cancelled at Sanam Luang and the Central
World Plaza.

A bomb set
off minutes after midnight at the Best Seafood restaurant near Central
World Plaza ripped off the leg of one foreigner and injured three others
along with two Thais, according to the Bangkok Post online.

A second
bomb was detonated at Central World Plaza near the spot where a New Year's
Eve public party had been scheduled.

Authorities
said the second explosion wounded both foreigners and Thais passing by.

All those
injured in the World
Central Plaza vicinity were taken to the nearby Bangkok
Police Hospital.

According to
hospital sources the injured included two British nationals, two Serbians,
one Irish national and one Hungarian. Their names were not immediately
available.

Two other
bombs were reportedly defused by police before they exploded, including
one at a bar on Khao Sarn
Road,
the capital's most popular place for budget travellers.

"We still
don't know who was behind the bombings," said Apirak, who advised people
to stay home unless it was necessary to go out on Monday, a public
holiday. The governor said a meeting was scheduled Monday morning with
Thai Prime Minister Surayud Chulanont to discuss the attacks.

The six
bombs that went off earlier Sunday were placed at busy Victory Monument,
near a Chinese temple in Klong Toey, two police traffic box at Sukhumvit
Soi 62 and another in Nonthaburi, behind the Seacon
Square
shopping mall in eastern Bangkok
and at a Tesco supermarket.

Initial
speculation was that the bombs were either the work of Muslim rebels from
Thailand's troubled deep south or of groups opposed to the current
military-installed government after a junta ousted former prime minister
Thaksin Shinawatra on September 19.

Political
analysts were more inclined to blame the bombs on disgruntled supporters
of Thaksin than on Muslim militants, arguing that the coordinated attacks
were beyond the operational capacity of the southern separatists who have
in the past limited their activities to Thailand's three southernmost
provinces.

Panithan
Wathanayakorn, a political scientist at Bangkok's prestigious
Chulalongkorn University and a leading expert on the deep South, said that
setting off bombs in Bangkok would mark a major shift in the separatists'
strategy.

Until now,
despite three years of carnage that have left 1,900 people dead, the
southern terrorists have made few attempts to operate outside their three
Muslim-majority provinces next to the border with Malaysia.

Panithan
said a second possibility was that the attacks were the handiwork of
political opponents of the current "interim" government, put in place by
the Thai military after to toppled Thaksin, a billionaire businessman
whose populist policies and autocratic rule has sharply divided Thailand.

Thaksin, who
held the premiership between 2001 and 2006, is in exile and is reportedly
seeking to return to Thailand to fight several court cases against family
members and his political associates.

Thus far the
military and Thai Prime Minister Surayud Chulanont have blocked his
return, arguing that it would further destabilize the political situation.
Thaksin's family fortune is estimated at 2 to 3 billion dollars, giving
him considerable clout in Thailand
where "money politics" tends to rule.